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The Great Smartphone Slowdown

NEW YORK (
TheStreet) --
Apple(AAPL - Get Report) shares have been under attack this year, as investors worry about revenue growth, the law of large numbers, and a perceived lack of innovation coming from the company.
Samsung has also recently experienced a drastic drop in market cap on concerns over sales of the Galaxy S4. It turns out these investors might very well be justified in their concerns.

Research firm
IDCshows that the iPhone lost market share in Western Europe in the first quarter of 2013. According to the research firm, Apple shipped 6.2 million iPhones during the first quarter, good for 14% of the market. That's compared to 7 million in the year ago quarter, when Apple held 15% of the market.

Overall, the smartphone market increased 12% year-over-year to 31.6 million units in the quarter, the lowest growth rate since IDC started tracking the market in 2004.

Samsung continues to dominate the Western European market, with 46% share, but even that growth is slowing. Samsung shipped 19.9 million units in the first quarter, up from 18.1 million units in the year-ago period, good for a 10% increase.

The smartphone market is rapidly losing its growth, as more and more customers own the devices, and are simply buying replacement phones. Couple this with a weak economic outlook for most Western European countries and mobile operators cutting subsidies, and smartphone sales are bound to slow down drastically.

"We are now entering the second wave of smartphone adoption in the region," said Francisco Jeronimo, European mobile devices research director at IDC, in the press release. "The first wave was driven by those users looking for devices that would meet their mobility needs. They did look for the best devices in terms of performance and user experience, and more importantly, they were able to afford and pay a premium to get a premium experience. We are now entering the second wave of smartphone adoption, which will be driven by those users with no need for a smartphone."

Google's(GOOG - Get Report) Android continued to dominate the operating system landscape, owning 69% of the market, as vendors such as
LG and
Sony(SNE - Get Report), in addition to Samsung, continued to see growth in the area. Apple's iOS lost ground, owning 20% of the overall market, compared to 25% of the market last year.